For most people, winning the Virginia Press Association's Virginian of the Year Award would be a crowning achievement and the culmination of a phenomenal career.
Not so for University professor and political pundit Larry Sabato, the most recent recipient of the VPA's annual recognition.
Speaking with the modest tone that has garnered him so many personal accolades, Sabato scoffed at the idea that this most recent achievement has changed his life.
"Awards are very nice but what matters in life is accomplishment, so the last thing anyone should ever do is sit on their laurels," Sabato said.
The government professor should know; at age 48, he's already received over 20 prominent recognitions, including a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship and the outstanding professor award from the Virginia State Council of Higher Education. "There are hundreds and hundreds of major awards, and it's always pleasant to get one, but the sun comes up the next morning and pretty much everything's
exactly the same."
Sabato declined to ruminate on why he received the award, whose previous winners include musicians Bruce Hornsby and June Carter Cash, filmmakers Tim and Daphne Reid and very few academics.
But his supporters are not so tight-lipped about the government professor's accomplishments.
Jonathan Carr, a senior aide at Sabato's Center for Governmental Studies, said that the well-known political commentator received the award because of the effect he has had on politics both in Virginia and nationally.
"We forget because we see him so much how important he is," Carr said. "He makes himself accessible not only to students but just to the average public. But if I had to give one reason why he won, I'd say it's because he has increased the excitement and interest people have about politics and also he's given a human touch to it. He's done so much."
Sabato's list of accomplishments does indeed seem lengthy. After graduating from the University in 1974, he became a graduate student at Princeton University and went on to Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, where he received his doctorate in 1977.
Sabato recalled that another man famous in the realm of politics had also studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. "I was there only a few years after Bill Clinton, and heard about him even after he had already left. He had left an impression, and not necessarily a favorable one."
Sabato returned to the States and started teaching at the University in 1978, and since has published a number of books, including a soon-to-be released work entitled Overtime! The 2000 Election Thriller.
"The depth of what he knows and shares with people is amazing," Carr said.
Feeding Frenzy, Sabato's first book about the excesses of the media in politics, became very popular during the scandals that plagued the Clintons in 1992.
"The term feeding frenzy became part of the political lexicon," Carr said. "That book was so successful that he followed it up with the book Peepshow, which basically tries to set out and delineate what the media should be covering and should not be covering in American politics today."
Sabato's suggestions of fair media coverage maintain that children of prominent politicians deserve a great deal of privacy. Regarding the recent outbreak of coverage on the alcoholic escapades of the Bush children, Sabato said that when the president's daughters end up on the police blotter, a story is inevitable but also appropriate.
"But it's all a question of placement and emphasis. I believed it's a story that belonged on the inside of the paper and dropped quickly. But of course none of that happened," he said, referring to numerous television programs and magazine articles which featured the first daughters in lead stories. "The media do everything to excess but this was particularly excessive."
His attempt to construct ethical guidelines to a field as unregulated as the media as well as his books and commentary on campaign finance have placed Sabato in the national spotlight. The oft-quoted pundit frequently appears on a variety of television shows, including "Good Morning America," "Nightline" and "60 Minutes."
People often ask why a man so dedicated to American government and whose motto for both work and life is "politics is a good thing" did not choose a career as a public officer.
"When I was young, I thought about it," Sabato recollects, "but I'm much too blunt to be successful in the political arena. And some of my views are not necessarily mainstream. I'm doing what I was meant to do."
What he was meant to do consists not only of writing and providing commentary, but also teaching several University courses. Sabato's charismatic lectures attract hundreds of undergraduates to his introductory American Politics class each year. Throughout the years Sabato estimates he has taught over 13,000 students.
His students portray the more personal side of the professor. First-year College student Emma Greeson recalls the final lecture of the year in Sabato's Introduction to American Politics class.
"Professor Sabato had just passed out course evaluations and left us to fill them out in silence," Greeson said. "A few minutes later we heard bathroom noises and it became apparent that he had forgotten to turn off his microphone."
Sabato's natural poise carried him through the embarrassing moment when he re-entered the large classroom. "He made a joke about it and blushed. I thought he handled himself pretty well. And it kind of showed how he's just a normal guy."
But the man behind the microphone does not hesitate to reiterate that the praise he's earned is not what motivates him to succeed. Despite his overwhelming success, Sabato claims he never even meant to become an academic.
"I just fell into it," he said. "That's one piece of advice I have for students: Don't plan too much. Let things happen and you might end up doing something you never imagined yourself doing but that you enjoy enormously."
Carr himself took advice and classes from Sabato before he began working at the Center for Governmental Studies. "His students love him and they always come back," he said. "But I think that the bigger issue about [why he received the VPA Award] is that he tries to take academics and apply it to the real world."
Sabato concurs. "I believe strongly that research ought to have a point," he said. "At least in my field. For my research, I do like to choose topics that have practical consequences and can contribute in some small way to the betterment of the political system."
Carr said that the pundit and academic is shaping not only political issues but also is making politics more accessible and meaningful to the average voter. "He's making an impact on how politics is practiced in our country today." And if that's not award-worthy, Carr doesn't know what is.
But for Sabato, who claims retirement is approaching in the next 15 years, life - and work - goes on.
"This award may not be significant at all," he said. "It's not a defining event in my life"
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